Want to see the Bears on TV? Good luck

When the Chicago Bears line up against the Washington Redskins for a Thursday night game on Dec. 6, thousands of Bears fans outside the Chicago area won’t be able to find the game on TV.

Dan Petrella

When the Chicago Bears line up against the Washington Redskins for a Thursday night game on Dec. 6, thousands of Bears fans outside the Chicago area won’t be able to find the game on TV.

The game is being broadcast on the NFL Network. And while it will also be shown locally on WPWR Channel 50, many fans outside the Chicago region won’t be able to see the game. Comcast, the largest cable provider in Illinois, doesn’t carry the network on its expanded basic cable package, but subscribers can pay an extra fee to add NFL Network to their cable lineup.

Fans of Big Ten college athletics have been caught in the middle of a similar dispute. The Big Ten Network launched in August, broadcasting many football and basketball games. Like with the NFL Network, Comcast will not carry the network on its basic package.

After hearing complaints from hundreds of area residents, two state legislators are introducing a bill designed to get executives from the networks and Comcast talking.

Rep. Robert Molaro, D-21st District, of Chicago and Rep. Randy Ramey, R-55th District, of West Chicago are co-sponsoring a bill that would create an independent arbiter to settle such disputes.

“When you get over 200 e-mails from your constituents demanding access to football, you have to take notice,” Ramey said.

The Big Ten Network won’t let customers pay extra to get their channel. DirectTV and Dish Network have included the channel on their basic packages, but Comcast has said the cost to carry the channel is too high and will be passed on to subscribers who don’t want it.

“By sponsoring this legislation, we are not saying that cable or (the) NFL is correct,” Ramey said. “We are proposing a fair way to end these disputes so that our constituents are no longer shut out of programming they should have access to.”

Rich Ruggiero, a spokesman for Comcast, said such legislation is unnecessary and unfair to the company, which has a long track record of negotiating with networks.

“Over literally decades, Comcast has negotiated hundreds and hundreds of agreements with programmers of all types,” Ruggiero said.

The negotiations have benefited Comcast, the networks and television viewers, he said.

The NFL Network is available to almost all Comcast customers who want to pay for it, and the Big Ten Network would be similarly available if network executives would agree to let the network be placed on the sports programming tier, Ruggiero said.